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Optimisation of daylight admission through window is crucial for alleviating glare while maintaining useful daylight levels in order to enhance occupants' health, visual comfort and moderating lighting energy consumption. Amongst various solutions, fixed external shade is an affordable solution for housing spaces that need to be sophisticatedly designed, especially during the period of increasing home spaces as working environments. In the humid subtropical region, daylight control plays an important role in indoor comfort, particularly with areas with a high window to wall ratio (WWR). Due to the insufficient amount of such study on non-office spaces in Australia, shading-related standards are not addressed in Australian building codes.

The chosen methodology for the research is a quantitative data collection and analysis through field measurement and simulation simultaneously. The first step is a multi-objective optimisation of shading elements through a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) on parametric modelling via Rhino3D CAD and simulation engines (DIVA and ClimateStudio). In the second phase, the Pareto front solutions are validated by experimental measurements within a room with a single north-facing window (the most probable for the daytime glare in Sydney) for the seven most common local window configurations.

Through the simulation of ten genes, 1,560 values and 2.4 × 1,019 of search space, this study found an optimum shade for each local common window layout, resulted in +22% in (UDI) and −16% in views with discomfort glare on average. Moreover, an all-purpose polygonal shade showed an average of 4.6% increase in UDI and a 5.83% decrease in the percentage of views with discomfort glare.

The findings are subject to the room dimensions, window dimensions and layouts, and orientation of windows for selected residential buildings in Sydney.

The study contributes to the development of highly accurate fixed external shading systems with rectangular and tapered-form external shapes. A real-time measurement by luminance-metre sensors and HQ cameras located at six eye levels is conducted to corroborate simulation results of the visual comfort.

This paper records the development of a final year project by Alan Seatwo, undergraduate studying BSc (Hon) Libraries and Information Management at Liverpool John Moores University. The project involved the development of an OPAC for cataloguing Chinese language material which can be used by both Chinese and non‐Chinese speaking staff. The project highlighted some important issues regarding information management in community languages. It also pointed out the lack of provision of software to support librarian, in addressing community language needs. At the same time librarians should also be aware of the latest information technologies and be able to apply them to the needs of the community.

Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is seeing high-rise buildings springing up with extensive glazing. Given the challenges of the country concerning energy provision, guaranteeing comfort in buildings and sustainability aspects, this trend is questionable and worrying in this pandemic era. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate how glazing types and their properties could reduce cooling loads and provide comfort by following the recommendations set by the Ghana Green Building Council (GHGBC) after the Green Star of South Africa, as well as other references found in literature.

Indoor thermal conditions were monitored to evaluate prevailing indoor conditions. Using a simulation application, various options were probed based on the Green recommendations and others found in literature to improve thermal comfort within the structure. Moreover, a questionnaire survey with observation was undertaken with 250 architects to understand the basis of decisions taken when specifying glazing for buildings.

The results indicate that cooling loads increased by 2% when the GHGBC after the Green Star of South Africa recommendations were applied. However, the use of the recommendations of previous research conducted in Ghana could reduce cooling loads by 38% to save energy. Suggested strategies of air velocity up to 1.0 m/s as well as thermal mass, comfort ventilation, conventional dehumidification and air-conditioning were found to be means to improve indoor comfort. Furthermore, the architects revealed that around 40% of multi-storey buildings are 70%–100% glazed. Of all the buildings, 62.4% was found to be glazed with single pane windows, making them use so much energy in cooling. Additionally, the survey underlined the client’s preference, cost and functionality as the three main bases for the choice of glazing in multi-storey office buildings.

A significant contribution of this study to the body of knowledge is the provision of empirical evidence to support the fact that due to climate difference, each country needs to undertake more experimental research works to be able to come out with standards that work. Thus, the GHGBC after the Green Star of South Africa does not necessarily work within the climatic context of Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the approximate window-to-wall ratio (WWR), window width-to-height ratio (WHR) and sill level for a room in Rasht–Gilan province and to present an optimal window in each of the WWR ranges providing the minimum energy consumption by integrating artificial lighting and thermal analyses, whilst maintaining internal comfort conditions using dynamic evaluation.

The process of modelling has four main steps: 1 – defining the building's features and requirements, 2 – validating input weather file data by on-site measurement, 3 – determining input parameters for the lighting and thermal analysis and 4 – clarifying variable parameters and fitness function for the optimization algorithm. Also, the survey study is performed in a daylit office room, in which 30 employees are employed to answer the questions in three different times of a day. In this process, the impact of daylight on their visual comfort is surveyed in 1,350 different illuminance levels which are manually recorded.

The range of useful daylight illuminance (UDI) values is determined as 200–1,000 lux. The optimum range of WWRs in the case study is 15%–25%. Also, due to the appropriate window height, electric lighting could be decreased by 40%.

Thermal and lighting performance in buildings is the relation of facade characteristics to environmental sustainability. Recent studies focussed on optimizing WWR and window characteristics considering thermal comfort and energy analyses. However, architects need freedom for designing façade and making decisions in their first sketches. Thus a guideline for optimum window conditions in each WWR is required. Also, considering occupants' behaviour in practical buildings, the visual comfort investigation is a gap in WWR optimization.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the current state of knowledge about the Flash Crash. It has been one of the remarkable events of the decade and its causes are still a matter of debate.

This paper reviews the literature since the early days to most recent findings, and critically compares the most important hypotheses about the possible causes of the crisis.

Among the causes of the Flash Crash, the literature has propsed the following: a large selling program triggering the sales wave, small but not negligible delays suffered by the exchange computers, the micro-structure of the financial markets, the price fall leading to margin cover and forced sales, some types of feedback loops leading to downward price spiral, stop-loss orders coupled with scarce liquidity that triggered price reduction. On its turn leading to further stop-loss activation, the use of Intermarket Sweep Orders, that is, orders that sacrificed search for the best price to speed of execution, and dumb algorithms.

The results of the previous section are condensed in a set of policy implications and recommendations.

The Commercial Invoice is the first EDI message to gain worldwide acceptance, and it has been registered as a standard by the United Nations. The action was hailed by the Commission of European Communities (CEC) as a significant step towards the international agreement on technical standards needed in order for electronic communications to gradually replace paperwork in world trade.

A new research domain known as the Quantified Self has recently emerged and is described as gaining self-knowledge through using wearable technology to acquire information on self-monitoring activities and physical health related problems. However, very little is known about the impact of time window models on discovering self-quantified patterns that can yield new self-knowledge insights. This paper aims to discover the self-quantified patterns using multi-time window models.

This paper proposes a multi-time window analytical workflow developed to support the streaming k-means clustering algorithm, based on an online/offline approach that combines both sliding and damped time window models. An intervention experiment with 15 participants is used to gather Fitbit data logs and implement the proposed analytical workflow.

The clustering results reveal the impact of a time window model has on exploring the evolution of micro-clusters and the labelling of macro-clusters to accurately explain regular and irregular individual physical behaviour.

The preliminary results demonstrate the impact they have on finding meaningful patterns.

This paper draws attention to the value of a new generation of information servers as a tool for human communication. Section I introduces the notion that the Internet is heralding a new era in communications, where peoples of different age and background are able to communicate with each other without barriers of distance or time. Section 2 examines the client‐server architecture which, together with the advent of graphic user interfaces, made possible a new generation of distributed, platform‐independent information servers. Four of the new generation servers are discussed in the remaining sections, namely Archie, gopher, WAIS and the World Wide Web, as well as video‐conferencing with CU‐seeMe.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a firm’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) goals influence its voluntary disclosure policy. Specifically, this paper examines how a firm’s M&A financing intentions influence the degree of aggregation in management guidance prior to and after the M&A transaction.

Using a logistic model, this study tests the relation between M&A financing and the decision to issue disaggregate earnings guidance for 3,929 acquiring firms from 2007 to 2011.

The logistic regression results show that firms are more likely to provide disaggregate earnings guidance when using mostly stock to finance M&A and that the incentives to disaggregate guidance vary throughout the M&A transactional window. Alternatively, because the value of cash is independent of the true value of the acquirer, the results show that firms offering mostly cash to finance M&A are less likely to issue disaggregate earnings forecasts. Additional analysis reveals that the decision to issue disaggregate earnings guidance also influences post-merger outcomes such as CEO turnover.

The choice to disaggregate earnings guidance and the choice to use stock as a means to finance an acquisition is made by management, thus are endogenous which could introduce bias.

This study provides insights into management’s incentives and attitudes toward the use of management forecasts to effect a potential merger and acquisition. Given the flexibility management has in issuing voluntary forecasts, management can tailor a financial message toward investors and potential targets in attempt to facilitate a merger and acquisition and to further the firm’s goals.